seventeen.
The next day, the sun rose and attempted to burn the whole place down.
Townsfolk joked uneasily about Glory now being hell on earth for real, before darting back indoors, away from a heat that made the surfaces of buildings and cars ripple like water.
But still the covert called, and still guests needed to be fed.
By dawn, Marsden had made her way back to the boardinghouse. No bodies to report that morning, and she’d met this with her usual mess of emotions—relief, frustration, panic, guilt. She tried not to think about Jude just being there yesterday, how aside from a handful of coins and various metal bits, they’d come up empty, too.
He would be back tomorrow afternoon, ready to keep looking.
She couldn’t deny that she wanted to see him again.
Breakfast was served in the dining room—eggs, toast, Canadian bacon, Bloody Marys—while she and Wynn ate in the kitchen. Not Lucky Charms this time, but Cap’n Crunch and strawberry milk. They ate like furtive mice, trying not to get caught. Like ghosts in the house, there but not there.
“Can you come shopping with us today?” Wynn asked, blowing milk bubbles with her straw. The pink spheres climbed the inside of her glass, threatening to spill over. “It’s Dany’s turn to make lunch, not yours, right?”
“Hmm?” Marsden was distracted. She was still thinking about Jude and how he was different from what she’d expected. Nicer. Easier to talk to. More open. She wondered if he thought the same thing about her. If she was less closed off than the person he knew from school and heard about in town. She wondered if, outside of the covert, he thought about her at all.
“Are you okay?” Her sister was leaning in close, her expression more exasperated than concerned. “You look funny.”
Because I’m thinking of funny things, Wynn. Waste-of-time funny things. She had to remember that Jude was a blip during this overly hot summer, a once-in-a-lifetime disturbance that would soon be dealt with and eventually forgotten. “Sorry, just watching your bubbles die a quick death. What’s up?”
“Can you come shopping with us this morning? I like Peaches and Lucy, but I want to go with you, too.”
A shard of ice formed in Marsden’s stomach. “You’re clothes shopping?” Shine had promised to take her younger daughter to the farmer’s market. Wynn had been excited, her mother’s time a rare thing. Marsden had intended to go down to Seconds, armed with questions for Fitz, her father’s old friend. I need you to tell me about that night.
“Yes! For a dress! I want one just like the ones they wore last night to dinner. Mom said fine and gave me some money—I think she felt bad that she forgot she was busy. Peaches and Lucy also said that if there was time afterward, they’d treat me to the salon to get my hair and nails done.” Wynn’s grin was a beam of delight, huge and enveloping, and it left Marsden frozen.
“You already have a lot of nice clothes, you know,” Marsden whispered through the hollow in her stomach. “Dany always finds them for you. And dresses—you won’t be able to run around as easily, or climb—”
“Sure I can—why wouldn’t I? So, will you please come with us? Please?”
Marsden silently willed Nina, Peaches, and Lucy into aging massively overnight. She prayed all the johns in town would lose every single cent down at Decks. Finally, she pictured Shine, and she wasn’t sure what to feel at all.
“I’ll come,” she said, trying to sound normal, doing her best to hide the panic that welled. Seconds and Fitz and her questions would have to wait one more day. “I just need to do the dishes first, okay?”
Her little sister beamed again, slid off her chair, and began to clear the table. “I’ll help you so we can leave earlier.”
“And Wynn?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think Peaches and Lucy would mind if we ask them to come along another time. Just you and me, okay?”
• • •
She knew it was sabotage, and she didn’t care.
Being heartless came easily when the alternative was losing her little sister to the clutches of Nina, to the desperation of their mother, to the clueless but obviously good intentions of Peaches and Lucy.
Not that one, Wynn, the collar is too loose.
No, the material is too shiny.
The color is too bright.
You’ll get sick of the print.
It was close to noon, Marsden had seen enough dresses to last her for multiple lifetimes, and Wynn had gone mostly silent.
“We can look again when the stores get fall stock in.” Marsden wheeled her bike along the sidewalk—beside her, Wynn pushed her own along, her face clouded. “But for now, how about some lunch? We have the money Dany gave us to buy coffee, remember? And if you don’t care about saving the dress money, we can use that, too.”
“We’ll need that money for a dress the next time we go,” her sister muttered. “And we’re not supposed to spend kitchen money on ourselves, or Dany’s going to stop trusting you with it.”
“I’ll tell her she can take it out of my pay.” Marsden knew full well Dany wouldn’t, not after she told her it was for lunch for Wynn. Dany was especially soft with her sister, indulgent when it came to making up for Shine as a mother. “The Burger Pit is right up the block—sound good?”
They rarely ate out, but when they did, and when it was up to Wynn to choose the place, it was always in the running. With its bottomless drinks bar, its long wooden tables covered with rolls of coloring paper, and the oversize cow jar at the front counter that mooed with the removal of each cookie from its belly, the Burger Pit was one of Glory’s busiest restaurants with its locals if not its tourists.
What her sister didn’t know was that each evening, halfway through dinner service, the Burger Pit’s side entrance opened for business and the basement floor came to life.
Five dollars bought someone fifteen minutes with one of the viewing slots and his choice of peep video.
Ten meant a viewing slot and a live show.
A whole twenty meant a private booth and choice of live performer.
Marsden knew Nina’s johns were frequent visitors of the place—they’d come crawling into the boardinghouse after they were done, smelling of fried cheese and the Pit’s house beer, their eyes and hands especially friendly. On those evenings, she would drag Wynn even farther away from the premises and sit outside the covert, trying not to be horrified by the future while her sister played beside her, making houses of leaves and sticks for the bugs, for her much-longed-for pets. She would sit there and recall Shine sitting on a bench in the bus depot, frozen.
Now the sun was straight overheard, searing noon into their scalps—the Burger Pit would be safe for hours.
Wynn gave in, unable to sulk in the face of cheeseburgers and tater tots. “Can we get the bottomless sodas?”
“Fine, twist my arm.”
Her sister scrambled onto her bike and took off down the sidewalk, weaving around other people on the sidewalk with a speed that had Marsden cringing.
“Hey, slow down,” she called out, “you’re going to—”
Too late. A group of guys stepped onto the sidewalk at exactly the wrong moment, and Wynn careened toward them like a rocket with too much fuel. There was a squealing of brakes and a muffled oath and Marsden blew out a sigh, climbed onto her bike, and rode over.
And she nearly turned right around when she saw who it was.
Jude.
He watched her approach with wide eyes, their dark depths flaring with surprise, and for a second, she thought of the boy she used to see in school, so good at warning everyone away even as he turned to his circle of friends with enough trust to seem another person. She’d learned to disappear in a different way, making herself small, shrinking into the crowd as much as possible.
Who was she to him now, after their time in the covert? Who was he to her?
Her heart pounded at she took in the scene: Wynn, her face red as she looked down at the blond boy still splayed on the ground; another boy, dark-haired and grinning, handsome as hell; and Jude—so tall, annoyingly magnetic, more unreadable than not.
“Don’t worry about it.” He gave her sister a half smile and smirked down at the blond boy. “Karey always walks around totally out of it. Bound to happen sometime.”
“I’m sorry,” Wynn strangled out. “I was going too fast.”
“Nah.” Karey waved from the ground and gave Wynn a smile so dimpled and charming it spread outward and had her sister smiling back. “I was just moving too slow.”
Owen—the good-looking dark-haired boy—yanked him up by the hand. “Man, we keep finding ways to try to lose you, and you keep sticking around. What’s it going to take?”
“I love you tons, too.” Karey brushed off his board shorts, fishing for the sandal that had flown from his foot. Shaggy, bleach-bright blond hair; sky-blue eyes; and what appeared to be a fondness for actual beachwear—he really was California personified against the pale dust of Glory.
Jude was watching Marsden, apparently as uncertain as she was.
“Hi,” he finally said.
Marsden lifted a stiff arm and waved. “How come you’re not working?”
“I am, actually. Just getting Roadie and the others at work some takeout; I ran into these guys on the way.” He glanced over at Wynn. “So your sister is also Evel Knievel?”
Wynn leaned toward him, her eyes widening in recognition. “You’re the boy who—”
“I’m Jude, yeah.” The panic that crossed his face came and went in a second, covered up by his smile. But Marsden still caught it.
So his friends had no clue about him going to the covert. She was still just another girl from school, instead of the girl helping their best friend find the last piece of his dead brother.
She looked over to see Owen and Karey both staring. They obviously had no clue how to take her. They’d all known of one another since they were five and started going to the same school, but out here in the open, she was brand-new to them.
“Hey, Marsden,” Owen said, his voice careful but friendly. Beside him, Karey’s expression was the same. “How’s your summer going?”
She tensed as she waited for the rest, for him or Karey to hint that she wasn’t fooling anyone by acting like her mother wasn’t a prostitute. To ask her about being friends with ghosts. But when they just smiled, she made herself nod. “Good, thanks.” Then she turned to Wynn, wanting to leave, sure it showed and unsure what to do about it.
Her sister was already pouncing, loving the idea of becoming friends with the boy who’d come all the way to their covert in search of her beloved older sister, of becoming friends with the friends of that same boy. “Can you eat lunch at the Burger Pit, too? With me and Mars? Jude, can’t you stay and then just bring back takeout for your friends at work?”
Marsden’s heart sank all the way to her toes.
If Jude and his friends agreed, there’d be no escape. She couldn’t ruin this next part of Wynn’s afternoon, given how she’d already fought—and won the battle—over buying a dress in imitation of Peaches and Lucy.
And her sister’s eagerness to make friends with Jude and Owen and Karey was partially Marsden’s doing—for years, she’d warned her to stay away from guys at the boardinghouse. Which meant these guys were safe, because they were from Marsden’s school, were practically oozing with cool and nice and funny. These guys were friendly in ways that weren’t frightening or wrong.
The deep clank of a large cowbell rang out, and the front door to the Burger Pit swung open.
A teenage girl, her face a just-as-attractive-but-in-a-different-way version of Owen’s, stood in the doorway. She wore her black half apron and white Burger Pit work shirt with a nonchalance that nearly made the outfit stylish.
Abbot, Owen’s twin.
Just as with her brother, Marsden knew her, yet didn’t at all. The other girl was all pixie-cut black hair, watchful dark eyes, and sharp-edged humor stuffed into a human form that radiated fearlessness. Abbot seemed everything Marsden didn’t know how to be.
“Wow, you guys actually managed to get out of bed before three in the afternoon.” Abbot grinned. “What happened?”
Owen mock scowled at his sister. “You promised us a free lunch, and that’s the only reason why I can deal with you this early.”
“You’re such the lesser half it’s not even funny. I saved a table in the back, by the way.” Owen and Karey headed inside, calling over their shoulders that they were starving and to hurry, and Abbot turned to look at Marsden, her expression slightly quizzical before recognition hit. “It’s Marsden, right? How’s it going?”
“Fine, thanks. You?”
“Everything’s great. Just hanging out?”
Marsden’s shoulders stiffened a tiny bit. “Yes.”
“Cool.” Abbot turned and gave Jude a huge grin. Marsden saw how it reached all the way to her eyes, came blasting through all her features to make her even prettier. She also knew then, without a doubt, who had taken the time and care to make him those friendship bracelets he wore so faithfully. Loops of string and a few hours of effort, but they reminded Marsden of who she was not.
Abbot reached out and pulled him into a hug. “Roadie sent you out again? Maybe he doesn’t trust you around the inventory but can’t say.” She let him go and winked. “Unless it’s just been too long since you’ve seen me.”
Jude smiled back. Marsden might have let her eyes roll.
“Just the regular lunch order from the shop, thanks,” he said. “I already called it in. And it’s a double order of the cheese tater tots for Roadie this time—dude nearly cried when I forgot the last.”
“It’s all probably nearly ready, anyway; I’ll go check the front counter for you. Too bad you can’t stay to eat with us, though—I’m on my break and everything.”
Jude glanced at Marsden, who had never been more uncomfortable in her life. Were she and Wynn included in the other girl’s invite? Was it her way of saying to please leave? She didn’t know Abbot well enough to read her the way she could Shine and Nina and the rest of the girls at the boardinghouse, the way she knew how to be slippery to avoid being with them.
She wanted to leave, and badly. But Wynn was still expecting lunch, not just with Marsden but also with everyone else—“everyone else” now including Abbot. Adding to the fun was the likelihood of Jude having to get back to Evergreen, leaving her to deal with his friends on her own.
Her sister was already locking her bike to the rack at the front of the restaurant, about to head inside.
And Marsden willed the Burger Pit’s dried-up, sun-beaten sidewalk to crack open beneath her feet and swallow her whole.
“I don’t have to take off right away, actually,” Jude said. “Roadie got an emergency call about a shipment and had to go check it out—he’s going to be delayed. I just figured it was already too late to call you guys and get you to hold off on the food.”
“He won’t care about a cold lunch?” Abbot slid her gaze to Marsden and then back to Jude again. Her expression gave away nothing.
Marsden couldn’t decide if she was more relieved or skeptical or annoyed at Jude’s rescue. Maybe she was all three.
Jude shrugged. Well, what’s the guy going to do about it? Then he flashed Marsden a grin so sweet that it momentarily left her disarmed. In that single second, he was neither the angry boy from the school hallways nor the boy in the covert devastated by a ghost, but someone else entirely, and she felt a wave of pity for Rigby, for what he’d never know.
“So let’s go,” he said to her, “before your sister takes off running through the restaurant and mows down half the diners.”